Swimmers swarm to regional meets

A swimmer competes at 2016 Douglas Logging Swimming Northland Age Group Championships

At the Moana Pool for the Canterbury West Coast & Otago Championships

Last week saw swimmers from Northland to Southland compete in some of the country’s biggest regional meets.

Swimming Wellington hosted nearly 650 swimmers from 48 clubs at the Wellington Summer Championships.

An impressive 12 Wellington records were broken at the meet as well as a New Zealand age group record which went to Mya Rasmussen (Kiwi West) in the 15 years 400m individual medley with a new time of 4:51.94.

The previous record of 4:55.43 was held by Anna Wilson since 1993.

Auckland’s Anthony Mosse Classic saw more than 500 swimmers and over 3,000 entries over the three day meet.

They also had a special visitor with Anthony Mosse himself over from the United States attending the Friday and Saturday sessions with his mum attending one session as well.

“It was great to have him at the meet and he was generous with his time as he took countless selfies with swimmers,” said Auckland Swimming’s Brett Green.

Moving further north nearly 150 swimmers attended the 2016 Douglas Logging Swimming Northland Age Group Championships held at the Kauri Coast Community Pool in Dargaville.

Northland official Carlrine Gillespie said “there were many stand-out performances from swimmers from several clubs, across a range of age groups, with some featuring for the first time.

“The three day Championship meet was blessed with beautiful weather for competitors using the outdoor 50m pool.”

Two South Island regions, Otago and Canterbury West Coast, came together for their regional championships which saw a total of 238 swimmers compete.

Otago administrator Kerren Keach said the nine sessions over the five day meet really put swimmers to the test especially with a number of senior swimmers coming off swim camps.

She added “regional medals were hotly contested during the morning sessions then the top eight (combined) competitors from regions battled it out in the evening session in 13-14, 15-16 and open age groups.”

Some of these swimmers will now be looking ahead to the upcoming national events beginning with the NZ Zonal Championships on February 13 and the NZ Junior Championships the following week, both to be held at the Sir Owen G Glenn National Aquatic Centre in Auckland.